Tag Archives: sociology

Set almost exclusively in a tiny courtroom, Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, is an Israeli-French film about a couple’s lengthy battle for divorce. Simple from its get-go, the film’s major strengths lie in its tense appeal and multiple layers of meaning, which build slowly through use of seemingly trivial gestures. Director-siblings Ronit Elkabetz and...Read...

"By creating a world intuitively together, by combining our imagination without compromise, we made a strange place. The mind is a strange place, sometimes beautiful, volatile and whimsical you know?" - Dustin Wong

"The urge to reinvent myself is strong, and the big question after London Zoo was, 'Do I want to break away totally from my past, and the albatross of the 'dubstep' label...?' The more I thought about it, the more I realised I had the most respect for artists who had found their individual voice,...

For the “Time Between” music video, Bear In Heaven enlisted the help of director Nick Bentgen, who spent long nights hanging out with strangers and visiting the homes of acquaintances in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, to collect what must have been hours of observational footage. He then wove together an abstract piece of visual poetry,...

Directed by Matt Lambert, Austra’s music video for “Habitat” weaves together three tales of human connection into one beautifully-lit cinematic narrative. Set in motel rooms that have been transformed into flowery love chambers, “Habitat” is a departure from Lambert’s more sexually-charged works, but maintains a strong focus on casting and persona; with a deliberate eye,...Read...

Folklorists like to romanticize blues music as being a pure expression of culture, but recorded blues music was carefully marketed to its intended audience from its very beginning. As early as the 1920s, music aimed at African-Americans was labeled as "race music", and the best way to advertise it was in the pages of African-American...

The narrative of Four Corners is equal parts Tsotsi and City of God, set in the sprawling South African ghetto of Cape Flats and following the people that struggle to survive it. At times, the dialogue is sparse and the acting is relatively wooden, but the overall message, and the despair of the situation, makes...Read...

"It reminds me a little bit of my inner world when I’m writing music, where I feel... a kind of loneliness, a kind of melancholy, a kind of sadness. At the same time, I feel hope... I felt that this was kind of a very nice metaphor for this kind of dualism between the catastrophe...

"I think exposing kids to as much shit as possible is really important, just so they know it exists. If you only ate apples, and only got your kid apples, then their favorite fruit would be apples. But that's just because they haven't gripped a mango, or banana, or plum yet. Maybe they'll hate every...

Over 500 destitute children are cared for by Scottish Love in Action (SLA), who fund the Light of Love Children's Home and School in Tuni, India. In association with SLA, Everything is New is an international outreach project run by Transgressive North, an Edinburgh-based arts collective. The project has culminated in a film and two...